Every once in a while, our little world is blessed with a leader. A leader with a vision who becomes so entwined with the entity he represents that they become one, so much so that it’s impossible to separate the founder from the founded. Like Arsene Wenger and Arsenal. Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore. Steve Jobs and Apple. Arsene was Arsenal, just the way LKY was Singapore and Jobs was Apple. By putting their heart and soul into building what they believe is right, they became what they built (in Wenger’s case though, the club existed before he came on the scene 22 years ago, but his ways revolutionised the club and the game in general, and rebuilt the club to represent what he believed in: Wengerball). They spent every waking second, their every breath, improving, perfecting, questioning and defending what they’ve built. “It’s not work, it’s my life,” said Jobs. Wenger summed up his ambition with “When I arrive at the gates of Heaven the Good Lord will ask ‘what did you do in your life?’ I will respond ‘I tried to win football matches.” LKY went a step further, when he said, "Even from my sickbed, even if you are going to lower me to the grave and I feel that something is going wrong, I will get up."So it always made me wonder what Arsenal would be like without Arsene, who has become synonymous with the club. Or Singapore without its legendary architect. Or Apple without the genius of Jobs.Now, with the divided fanbase coming together to bid farewell to Wenger, whose emphasis on delivering winning (largely) performance with style attracted me to Arsenal some fifteen years ago, the answers seem closer. Apple isn’t the same without the guiding insight of its founder. iPad with stylus and the Apple map disaster come to mind.Singapore isn’t exactly struggling but the big man is missed. Recent MRT breakdowns made people wonder wistfully how the ‘old man’ would have handled it, and whether he would have allowed such lapses at all.As for Arsenal, it is too soon to tell. Like a Chelsea supporter friend of mine said a few years ago, we will feel the magnitude of Arsene’s impact only after he’s gone.While they leave an illustrious legacy, they also leave massive shoe sizes to be filled for their potential replacements. But like someone recently said about Wenger, he wasn’t bigger than Arsenal, but Arsenal are bigger because of him. I think it’s a sentiment that fits the other two perfectly.The sentiment, leave it better than you found it, probably sums up what they gave their lives for I guess.

For a long time I had wanted to do an app, a quote app to be specific, for this great sage of Arunachala, Ramana Maharishi. This dream came true on 4 Jan 2017 when the App Store, after rejecting the binary twice and asking me to add more of their APIs, said 'Congratulations! Your app is now ready for sale!'My coding journey started a couple of years ago with Gamesalad, which didn't help, besides they were charging for just downloading and playing around with it.Then I bought a book on Python, which led me to take a few courses on Udemy where I found more courses on Ruby and Rails, which made me abandon Python. While learning Rails there and OneMonth, I discovered Swift and Xcode.This seemed like an environment where I could build my dream app for Xcode came with drag and drop storyboards and Swift was a bit similar to Ruby. After taking multiple Swift courses, I found one that came close to what I was looking for on Udemy. After trying a few more, I started building my app based on the first course. Luckily there was a more updated version in Treehouse. I built a simple app with an image of the saint above and a randomly generated quote that would appear below, with a button below that. Clicking that would produce a different quote each time while changing the background colour. Submitting is not an easy process the first time around. That took a while, maybe about an hour, for the app to be uploaded to the App Store. Received wisdom was that it would take a week to hear from them, and it was way off the mark. They got back within a day, saying it didn't meet the requirements,4.2 minimum functionality, more specifically. So I added a map and decided to embed multiple pdf files. Which was a challenge, as there were not many lessons on embedding pdf files with Swift 4, the latest version. Swift is an evolving language which meant what worked with Swift 3 would break in a later version. I managed to find one on YouTube (which, by the way, has many kind souls who have uploaded many useful videos on Swift) that showed how to embed one file using WebView. I needed more. So from another lesson on building a music app on Udemy, I figured out how to use similar methods to implement what I wanted. Now I had a quote page (screen, if you will), a Map view, a page with 3 pdfs, and another page that displayed a pdf. This time, App Store said it looks more like a PDF app, and asked me to add more APIs and make it more of an app users will want for entertainment. And they said it should work on iPad as well, even if the app is specifically for iPhones!Went back to the drawing board/laptop, and started looking for ways to add videos and audio files. Some Udemy lessons came in handy for embedding audio files, while a few YouTube lessons helped me with embedding videos. I added a page that displayed 5 videos. It was working ok. But I wasn't 100% satisfied. Then I discovered a life-saving framework, SafariSevices, which helped me embed not just a few videos but link a button to playlists and websites without taking the user out of the app. So added that, cleaned up the app, and re-submitted on 3 Jan. Within a few hours as usual App Store got back saying the sound files don't play on iPad on their end. I rechecked at my side, on all simulators, and informed them that all was working fine.Next day, I woke up to the most encouraging and memorable email ever. 'Welcome to the App Store' said the subject line, and the email proceeded with: 'Congratulations! We are pleased to let you know that your app Ramana Maharishi has been approved for the App Store'. Done! If any of you are interested in the teachings and life of Bhagwan Ramana, you can download it from here It's free.

PS: I'm in the process of updating the app with swipe gestures and clean up the UI a bit.Useful resources:https://www.udemy.com/ios-11-app-development-bootcamp/https://www.udemy.com/make-me-an-iphone-app-developer-beginner-series/https://www.udemy.com/ios-development-learn-to-build-your-first-app/?start=0#reviewsTips, tricks and even full lessonshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK3l4hRgG-5GmgaN4NC-XFghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxPavuI4t8oHave a problem? You are not alone.https://stackoverflow.comFor creating app icons and image resizing across screen sizeshttps://wearemothership.com/work/prepo/https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/50721/asset-catalog-creator

Moving is stressful, and even more so if it involves crossing borders. Like relocating from Singapore to India, which is what we did recently (in 2016) after living in Singapore for 22 years. What makes it worse is there are not that many helpful accounts online, and annoyingly, every time you search ‘moving to India’, Google throws up 15000 results on moving FROM India. Hope the following account helps you with your move back to India (and shows up when you Google moving TO India).First, the movers.We did a lot of research and shortlisted 4 movers of international repute. There was a post in Quora where someone had a harrowing experience with a mover who forgot to tell the people that the port at Goa is not vested with powers to clear international customs resulting in days of anguish and increasing expenses of storing uncleared goods at the dock. Finally he managed to speak directly to the officer involved and sort the mess out amicably.So we had to make sure our mover delivered door-to-door from Singapore to Goa. And we wanted to deal with just one mover to minimize points of contact and keep it simple. We didn’t want the trouble of dealing with two different movers as there may be gaps in communication, and knowing Murphy, it is better to be on the safe side.The MoversOur list comprised Allied Pickfords, AGS Fourwinds, KCDat, Santa Fe and RelocAsia. They all came on time, were very professional in their assessment and gave pretty much the same information. The container sizes varied slightly but the rest were pretty much the same.All reverted when they said they would except AGS which was strange. I checked spam folder, nothing.Allied’s email had gone to the wrong email id, which I found out when I wrote to them saying I hadn’t received any update from them, seems they had gotten my email id wrong.Of all the quotes, we found Allied the most sensible. Followed by RelocaAsia. But the terms and conditions of the bordered on the ridiculous. Anything that happened to the crew while packing was our fault. If they lost the shipment in the middle of the sea, it’s our fault. Seriously.After you choose the mover, the project is handed over to another person at the mover’s, meaning it’s not the same person who came for the quote. Note that they quote based on the container size, 20 foot or 40 foot etc. The assessment made by the representative usually matches up so there will be no surprises. That said, we thought there was a fair amount of space in the truck after all the items were packed. Later we found that most of the boxes were just half-full (not in the optimistic way either), when they could have easily packed more.Our contact in Singapore, Christine was excellent. She was patient, helpful and cheerful, even though we had to change the date of moving 3 times. But the movers themselves were not as professional, more on that later.Itemised ListNow, once you’ve decided on the mover, you will have to go through the pack they would have given you including insurance form and check list. This will take a good 10-15 days, depending on how much you have managed to accumulate over the years. We took about 3 weeks itemizing our 22 years of gathering, spending a few hours every day.We created a spreadsheet for ornaments, electronics, furniture, and list of items in each room. We entered the original value (I had receipts for purchases made all the way back in 1996), a description of the item and insured value. The process was as exhausting as the list but it served as a good reference for us. And it comes in handy when claiming insurance for damaged items.DVDs, CDs and BooksWhile I listed the name of each DVD, it is recommended you just give a lump-sum value for movies and music collection, unless of course you have signed copies of DVD/CD by your favourite director/musician. Same goes for books.Kitchen ItemsYou are not allowed to carry perishables, spices, or even tea. One look at the container and you’ll see why it’s hard for anything less than teak wood furniture to survive that trapped heat for weeks. That leaves pots and pans, cutlery and crockery. Again, lumpsum value for insurance but you can be specific if you have anything precious.ClothesJust make sure all of them are labelled properly so you don’t spend days figuring out the location of the box with your underwear. Mark the boxes with ‘bedroom 1’ and the name of the person whose clothes it contains, it’ll save you a lot of time while unpacking.Precious stuffWe collected a whole lot of stuff from our travels around the world, which we itemized in the list, with a description, value of the item, and when it was bought. Rough estimate will do.Your travelCustoms department requires your presence in the country when your shipment arrives in India. So plan accordingly. Make arrangements to stay at a friend’s place or book a hotel to tide you over after you move out and before you board the flight back home.

Get a local number so your mover in India can contact you and keep you posted about the status of your shipment. All going well, it should take a month. Remember, India has a lot of holidays. Once you are back, your mover will send someone to collect your passport for customs clearance. Your presence is not required normally. This process takes a few days, not longer than 4 or 5 days.After this, you will be informed about the date of release from the port, make sure it gets out quickly as demurrage costs are quite high. Your mover will advice you on this. Make sure the house you are going to is ready for move-in.If you need storage in the meanwhile, most of the movers offer facilities but the fee is quite high. Keep that in mind.​I'll write about our experience with Allied Pickfords in the next post.

​We recently had a nightmarish experience with Flipkart. What was supposed be a smooth, friendly, professional experience turned into a frustrating, stressful, blood-boiling, enraging drama that would have made the Buddha flip his lid. It was incompetent, unprofessional, downright inefficient. Third world, in a word or two.It started with us ordering a washing machine when we moved to Goa a couple of months ago. We paid up front, which probably was a mistake. We should have opted for cash in delivery, at least we could have bough the machine elsewhere instead of yelling and screaming our lungs out at the barefaced lies spouted by the courier company that was supposed to deliver in 5 days.Incompetence, inefficiency and plain liesIt took another five days. Five days of us calling them every single day, having to listen to the salespeople who 'knew and understood our frustration' because that was what the bloody script in front of them told them to say.Five days of being promised delivery the next day, getting a message saying it was attempted and failed. Five days of immense rage and frustration because we were at home, morning to night, without leaving our house.8 am to 8 pm - screw your daily routine because FlipKart is coming. We did not leave the house because Flipkart promises to delivers from 8 am to 8 pm (but doesn't). So please don't make any plans, like going to work and earning money. If you have sudden medical emergency or your child has not returned from school way past evening, forget all that, because Flipkart says they may come anytime. And they don't (other options is to have a large family so they can wait while you go about your work).The liesWhat got us were the absolute lies that the delivery was attempted when it wasn't. We know this because we were home. All day. Every day. For five days that we were waiting. And we had a lot of contract workers about as renovation was going on. They were witness to the frustration we were going through.And we couldn't go and buy a machine from another shop as we had already paid and the refund wasn't going to be immediate.Meanwhile laundry was piling up.Finally, we had to threaten them with legal action after which they delivered.After five rage-filled, blood-pressure-skyrocketing days they delivered. A few parts were missing but we couldn't be bothered.Maybe it was an exception. Maybe they all had an off day. Whatever the reason, we are not buying anything from FlipKart. Ever.Kinda reminds me of this Seinfeld episode where Kramer makes the cable guy wait. Made me want to dohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4z2fi2PTKQI’ll stick to Amazon whom I’ve been using in Singapore. Hopefully, they’ll deliver (and not make us wait 8 am to 8 pm).

​This is a fantastic short story by James Thurber:Once upon a sunny morning, a man who sat at his breakfast looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. ‘There’s a unicorn in the garden,’ he said. ‘Eating roses.’ She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. ‘The unicorn is a mythical beast,’ she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips. ‘Here, unicorn,’ said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. ‘The unicorn,’ he said, ‘ate a lily.’ His wife sat up in bed and looked at him, coldly. ‘You are a booby,’ she said, ‘and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch.’ The man, who had never liked the words ‘booby’ and ‘booby-hatch’, and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he said. He walked over to the door. ‘He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead,’ he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a straight-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived, they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest. ‘My husband,’ she said, ‘saw a unicorn this morning.’ The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. ‘He told me it ate a lily,’ she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. ‘He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead,’ she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the straight-jacket, the husband came back into the house.‘Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?’ asked the police. ‘Of course not,’ said the husband. ‘The unicorn is a mythical beast.’ ‘That’s all I wanted to know,’ said the psychiatrist. ‘Take her away. I’m sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jay bird.’ So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.Moral: Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.

'A clear sentence is no accident', says the author of 'On writing well'. Well, looks like you don't have to look far to find examples of these little 'accidents'. Just pick up any magazine or browse any website and you'll see most of the article headlines will have a number in them. 10 ways to improve your sex life. 37 websites for free graphics. 8 ways to get over your ex. Even football sites are learning precisely 5 lessons from every weekend match. Nothing more, nothing less. Just 5 lesson, derby or not.I thought headlines like these died along with their 'how-to' cousins. Apparently not. Left to these guys, they would probably rewrite the classic Lemon ad with "3389 reasons why a VW is better" (3389 being the number of QC inspectors in those days). You can understand why, though. It's sheer laziness.I mean why go through hours of writing and rewriting when you can easily crank out a bunch of 'X ways to do Y' headlines? You can spend that time more productively, by hitting the like button on cat videos and posting close-up shots of food. I don't know when it will stop, but it's spreading like a cliche. Close on its heels are the bullet points (bullets don't kill good copy, people do, to coin a phrase). While bullets have their place, they shouldn't be the only way to express one's point of view. But 'the-death-by-bullets' approach is dictated by the 'X ways to do Y' headline. And with the proliferation of online material on every topic by anyone with access to a computer and the internet, coupled with the short-attention span of the audience, it seems decent copy will have to roll over and die.But you do see decent pieces sprinkled across the web, dodging the bullets so to speak, leading you to believe that there is still hope for well-written articles. Speaking of which, here's a link that you might find useful: http://goo.gl/KczFQJ

Something arty happened on the way to grocery shopping a couple of weekends ago. We picked up a lovely painting from Little Red Art's pop-up exhibition at Leisure Park, Kallang. They were just setting up the shop when we spotted this strikingly beautiful painting of Buddhist monks. The chirpy ex-banker running the outfit told us that they don't sell copies and hence this was a one-of-a-kind piece. And at around 500SGD it was extremely reasonable too.The following week, after learning that the show was still on, we went back and picked up another piece (a HongKong cityscape) for less than $300. Besides the money-well-spent angle, there's a feel-good factor of supporting emerging artists in the SEA region. They showcase photographs too if you are into pixel-perfect art. Below are the paintings we bought and you can find them at http://www.little-red-art.com